


a prayer for which no words exist

by agent_carter



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Domestic, M/M, but also demons, post-Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 17:12:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12303771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_carter/pseuds/agent_carter
Summary: Tomas teaches him how to change the oil in his car.Marcus teaches him how to get the blood stains out of his shirts.It gets easier.





	1. i. you wanted an adventure

**Author's Note:**

> >> AKA the one where Marcus and Tomas try and cohabitate (feat. repressed!bisexual Tomas, pining!Marcus, and a long-suffering Bennett)
> 
> >> All titles are from Richard Siken poems~

**i. you wanted an adventure**

 

Tomas teaches him how to change the oil in his car.

Marcus teaches him how to get the blood stains out of his shirts. 

It gets easier.

 

>>

 

They’re slouched in armchairs by the fire, and t he sound of the rain on the window is pulling Tomas down into the first peaceful mood he’s had in days.

 

"Have you heard from her since?" Marcus asks, splitting the feeling cleanly in half. Even though he doesn’t say Jessica’s name out loud, Tomas hears it anyway.

 

Tomas doesn't meet his eye. He _hadn’t_ heard from her in weeks. He’d picked up his pen a thousand times, didn’t get farther than _I miss you_ when his courage failed and his heart shuttered closed. 

 

>>

 

_“—don’t see why you’re still playing this game,”_ Bennett says across the phone. _“I stick my neck out for you, the Pope himself invites you back, and you’re still wasting your time in that frigid wasteland. Explain that to me, Marcus, because I really—”_ Five thousand miles of wiring and static soften his voice, but not its sharp edge of disdain.

 

“Because, _darling_ ,” Marcus says, and then he grins because now Bennett is cursing. “I like it here."

 

>>

 

Working as a team is both an advantage and a disadvantage. 

 

Having two of them means twice the strength, twice the knowledge, twice the skill. It also means twice the weak spots, twice the mistakes, twice the consequences. 

 

And the demons knew how to attack a partnership--they had played them against each other in all manner of disastrous ways, often making them believe the other was dead or compromised or traitorous. 

 

Anything inside their heads could be easily scooped out, so there was no point in safewords or codes. 

 

It was grim, uncertain work. But neither of them would have preferred to do it alone.

 

>>

 

Sometimes, when it's quiet, Tomas reads Marcus' bible.

 

Some passages are almost indecipherable. Notes were scrawled on every page: _wrong, didn't work, Tallahassee: 2010, waste of time._ A few phone numbers, some coordinates. In the middle of Acts, there is a photograph of a woman who has Marcus’ eyes.

 

Chronicles is a mess of feathers, sweeping darkly over the nation of David, the death of King Saul. John, covered in roses. Psalms, swathed in trees. Leviticus, crossed out.

 

James, outlined in red: _You believe that there is one God; you do well: the devils also believe, and tremble._

 

>>

 

Reverend Samuel was as tall, spindly, and friendly as a rolling pin. 

 

Although Marcus had singlehandedly saved Pope Sebastian’s life, Saint Aquinas had come to collect on all that had come before--his unexplained disappearance, his arrest, his excommunication--all of which had drawn their reputation under public scrutiny.

 

_"--humiliating, and frankly shameless behavior.”_ Samuel blustered. _“After we took you in when no one else would, even with your failings, a trail of dead in your wake, your_ reputation _\--"_

 

"That's enough." Tomas' voice was as clear and calm as a frozen river. Marcus had remained steadfastly stoic throughout the chastisement, but the way Samuel was speaking had grated Tomas’ patience into sawdust. “Please leave.” Samuel scoffed, then spun on his heel. He turned back with his hand on the door. 

 

"You know what he _is_ , don't you?" He spits the words out like poison.

 

Tomas just rises, and points to the door. "Get out of our church." 

 

They don't talk any more about it, but Marcus still lies awake that night. 

 

_Our._

 

>>

 

After Casey’s exorcism, Marcus and Tomas had had their own share of recovering to do. 

 

Their traumas presented in oddly complementary ways: Tomas sleeping for almost two days straight, Marcus working through bouts of insomnia. 

 

Marcus would wander the house like a blind man, touching furniture like he couldn’t see, fingers tight like he couldn’t feel. 

 

Tomas lay in his bed like a dead man, not moving, not knowing, drifting through his own unconsciousness. 

 

They both have terrible dreams. 

>>  


When at last they emerged, Tomas missed his family badly. 

 

At first he had been wary of introducing Marcus to his sister, but as it turned out, he and Olivia get on like a house on fire. 

 

Marcus asks after her night classes and Olivia critiques his sketches, they tear apart her coworkers, drink iced coffee and do the crossword, tease Tomas until he snaps. 

 

“I should have known you two would be the death of me,” he says, rubbing his eyes, equal parts aggrieved and amused. Olivia swats him with the newspaper. Marcus just smiles. 

 

>>

 

Tomas tells her some of what they’ve been doing. 

 

He doesn't say the word _exorcist_ but Olivia guessed it from the news anyway, her mouth a thin line, her hands tight on Tomas’. 

 

One night as Marcus walked her out, Olivia paused, hand on the door.  


“Thank you for keeping him safe.” She said quietly. “God knows he can’t do it himself.”

 

Marcus didn’t know what to say. 

 

But later, looking at Tomas, Marcus knew he could never truly keep him safe.

 

Unfortunately, he also knew he’d become one of those fools who’d die trying.

 

>>

 

The demon spits, bites through its own lip, shatters a window, chews the broken glass. 

 

_I know what you want,_ the thing that looks like Tomas whispers inside his head.

 

The real Tomas brandishes his Bible like a shield, covering Marcus so he can get close enough to press his hands to its sore-puckered face. It smiles at him, awful and grisly, with Tomas’ mouth. 

 

_"You are loved,"_ Marcus says. He’s no longer sure who he’s talking to. 

 

>>

 

Often, Tomas falls asleep with the light on, so Marcus comes in to turn it off. 

 

Usually there’s a book falling, fallen, or about to fall from his slack hands. Tonight, when Marcus stoops to pick up the latest literary casualty, Tomas starts awake. 

 

"Marcus?” His eyes are glazed and disoriented. 

 

"Go back to sleep, Tomas," Marcus murmurs. He stands, meaning to leave, but Tomas' fingers, warm and soft with sleep, catch his arm. Marcus turns back reluctantly, wishing the touch didn't electrify him like it did. 

 

"I dream of angels," Tomas whispers. His voice was broken, his eyes beseeching. "So many angels, Marcus. I see them falling."

 

He squeezes Tomas' hand gently, counting the seconds before he has to leave, before he does something he’ll regret. But when he meets Tomas' eyes, he does not falter.

 

"I dream of them too.” 

 

>>

 

They go to Columbus, to Winnipeg, to Boulder.

 

When they finally stumble home, they’ve saved seven and failed one.

 

The twin boys had been possessed by the same demon, which forged a fragile and volatile tether between all three entities. It had taken them four days before one of the boys was free, another six before the second was dead. He died spitting green mucus and dripping black blood from his eyes. He died holding Tomas’ hand.

 

Marcus hadn’t slept properly in days. Tomas hadn’t slept at all.

 

>>

 

They've been back in Illinois for a few weeks now, and it wasn't long before the Rances found out. It had been months since they’d last seen them and Tomas decided it was about time Marcus figured out the Blue Line anyway. 

 

Marcus passes the time by sketching, trying to capture the passing landscape as it sped by.

 

He squints down at the paper, rubbing at his jaw in thought. For a moment, Tomas watches him. There’s a tiny smudge of charcoal on his face, and he’s struck by the unexpected and overpowering urge to smooth it away with his thumb, unmake the worry lines with his hands. 

 

He mentally shakes himself, focusing instead on the sound of the train and the hum of the radio, the song’s refrain drifting through his head all the way to LaSalle: _God I love you, but you trouble me.  
_

 

>>

 

"How've you been?" Casey asks.   
  
He and the girls are sitting on a porch swing overlooking the backyard, watching Tomas and Angela in the garden.

 

"About the same, love."

 

His eyes drift magnetically back to Tomas, hands in the earth, clothes smudged all over. He looks up, catches Marcus' eye, and smiles.

 

The sun is swelling full overhead, rays catching in Tomas’ black hair, his eyes as soft as the sky.

 

It's a rare, astounding moment of gentleness. 

 

Marcus feels the longing ache within him, deep and cavernous.

 

He looks away only to realize Kat's been watching him. She gives him a searching look, and he silently damns himself.

 

"What about you?" he turns back to look at Casey, making an effort to smile.

 

It takes her a minute to decide.

 

"I'm good," she says. " _Really_ ," she insists when he frowns. "Recovery's a process."

 

"Believe me," he says, Tomas' sunny smile still nearly blinding him. "I know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song mentioned: Tristan and Iseult by Tarkio


	2. ii. so i ran (and i knew you wouldn’t catch me)

**ii. so i ran (and i knew you wouldn’t catch me)**

 

Marcus has been in love before. He’d been in love before and it hurt him worse every time.

 

He felt himself falling, saw it coming a mile away, maybe from the moment Tomas had knocked on his door all those months ago, mind still warm from the dream that had burned inside it. He knew that if he allowed himself even a tiny portion of this feeling, if he didn’t cauterize it immediately, then he would be lost to it. Reason had always been his safety net.

 

But the wanting only grew, wrapping around reason like a weed taking root in the earth. 

 

>>

 

It had only gotten worse in the past few months.

 

Sometimes Marcus would look at Tomas, and it was all he could do to stay silent, to keep the floodgates of his heart firmly closed.

 

Sometimes Tomas would look back, and it was all Marcus could do not to run.

 

>>

 

The first time he leaves, it isn’t because he loses a fight, it’s because he wins.

 

_You couldn’t do this without me._

 

The words cut Tomas’ argument right out of his mouth.

 

So Marcus wins and his prize is Tomas’ face crumpling like paper, it's Tomas turning around and closing the door behind him, it’s Tomas not stopping him when he leaves.

 

So he leaves, because what else could he do.

 

>>

 

He scours the East Coast, finds demons in Hartford, in Kingston, in Portland.

 

He likes Boston, likes the taste of the air and the way the city spreads, how the light falls. 

 

He sends Bennett a postcard from the Old North Church, signed with a cheery _love from Marcus xx._

 

He pauses, then adds a P.S.: _See you soon_. 

 

>>

 

"You are unbelievable," is how Bennett greets him at the airport. 

 

"So I've been told." He replies cheerily, pulling Bennett into an unwilling hug and kissing him loudly on the cheek. 

 

"For God's sake," Bennett snaps, flushing deep red and pushing Marcus off him. 

 

_"That's blasphemy,_ love," Marcus whispers in his ear.

 

>>

 

Marcus enjoys Italy in spite of himself.

 

He spends his days walking through the sunlit rooms of St. Peter's Basilica, recounting the events of last year with other priests in shoddy Italian.  He even visits briefly with His Holiness, cheerfully on his best behavior, Bennett glowering like a forbidding mother over a normally disobedient child.

 

It only takes three days for Bennett to ask exactly how long he planned on staying, words heavy with the implication that he would much prefer it if they were once again on separate continents. 

 

But Marcus knows Bennett's missed him, hears it underneath the scalding tone and between his gritted teeth, knows it because Bennett sentences him to the fifth circle of hell instead of the seventh, knows it because Bennett still scolds but doesn’t yell, knows it because he’s known Bennett too well, for too long. 

 

>>

 

"Probably a good idea, bit of a fire hazard, that." Marcus crows.

 

Bennett glares at him between white paschal candles, gripping the long-handled snuffer like he's seriously considering beating Marcus with it.

 

_"Don't you have somewhere else to be?"_

 

Marcus laughs and wanders the shadowy back of the church, examining the flickering votive display, the sheafs of carefully folded pamphlets.

 

When Bennett approaches, Marcus holds up a candle, a wicked smile on his face. “Pray for me?”

 

“As if I’d waste my breath.” Bennett snaps. Marcus laughs, but then, “Not that I haven’t tried.” Something in his tone is wrong. Marcus stares at him incredulously but Bennett won’t meet his eye, like he hadn’t meant to say that at all. 

 

"Don’t tell me you’re _worried_ about me," Marcus says, half-mocking, half-genuine. Bennett shakes his head disparagingly.

 

"Like I said, Marcus: don't you have somewhere else to be _?_ " But this time he says it softer, without heat. This time, Marcus understands. 

 

So he puts down the candle with a sigh, and tells Bennett about the fight, about Tomas, about everything.

 

"I'll never understand you," Bennett says after, but he means: _I wish you'd let me help you_. 

 

>>

 

Bennett puts out the altar candles every night, and Marcus turns up. Sometimes he's there to antagonize, sometimes he's entirely lost in his own thoughts. 

 

Tonight, Marcus just sits in the pews, watching as Bennett tends the papal altar, Baldachin columns spiraling around them and the bones of the Saints sleeping beneath them. Then Marcus stands, braces his hands on the back of the pew, and moves.

 

Bennett ignores him as Marcus prowls up the short steps to the pulpit, concentrates on laying out the Bible for tomorrow's mass.

 

Then Marcus brackets him in with his arms, mouth right against his ear. 

 

>>

 

They fuck and it feels good, feels familiar, feels like a reprieve. 

 

Bennett bites him like he's angry, but kisses him like he's sorry. It's always been that way with him.

 

It’s been four years since Haiti and Bennett doesn't look at him like he's searching, doesn't touch him like he's longing, and Marcus needs that, needs how Bennett understands exactly what this is and isn't careful with him. Marcus relishes his bruising grip, his searing touch, drops gladly to his knees when Bennett says _"Kneel."_

 

God, but Marcus has missed him. 

 

>>

 

Their bodies still fit together like they used to in seminary school, where he memorized scripture by tracing the words a hundred times on Bennett's skin, Bennett swatting his hands away so he could focus, but then pouncing on Marcus later, anger and lust and desperation--and it was so good but they were never good for each other, always angry, always plagued by demons both real and metaphoric, always fighting each other, always under the thumb of the Church, always split on different paths, different lives. Never free, never free. 

 

>>

 

His phone rings. 

 

Marcus quickly and carefully extricates himself from the bed; Bennett hates being woken up. 

 

The tall windows are all open and the stars are visible through the orchard. Marcus steps outside. With a rush of guilt, he sees Kat’s name on the screen. He answers, bracing himself for a well-deserved lecture. 

 

“Hello, love.” 

 

“You haven’t been answering our calls.” Her voice could have frozen his phone solid. “It’s really freaking Casey out, so you’d better tell me what's going on.” 

 

Marcus leans against the patio wall and sighs. He thinks about that day in the garden, about Kat’s suspicious eyes. “I think you know.”

 

“Yeah it wasn’t a big leap.” She replies evenly, no bluster, no bullshit. “You could have just told him how you felt instead of _leaving the country_.”

 

“And how do you think that would have gone?” He demands, anger rushing up in his throat. “His heart’s in a million pieces as it is and I wasn’t about to go and ruin our friendship on top of that.”

 

“Listen asshole,” she snaps, “In case you hadn’t noticed, you _still_ ruined your friendship.” Marcus smiles in spite of himself, because oh, he's missed her.

 

“And,” she pauses, like the quiet before the car crash. “You don’t get infinite chances with the people you love.”

 

>>

 

The next day, he finds a plane ticket waiting for him on his pillow. With a pang of shame, he realizes maybe he'd woken Bennett after all.

 

>>

 

Marcus finds him in the library. 

 

He sits across from him, deliberately flips the page that Bennett was reading, his smile ready for Bennett's scowl.

 

"You're still here."

 

"Forgot my bookmark," Marcus says, pulling Bennett's out of its place. Bennett leans back in his chair and sighs with irritation, plucks the bookmark out of his hand. 

 

"Why are you _still here,_ Marcus?" He doesn't really sound angry. He keeps doing that. Not sounding angry. 

 

He rubbed at his brow and couldn't quite meet Bennett's eye. "You heard?" 

 

"Didn't need to. I know you." Again, his voice is surprisingly soft.

 

Marcus looks at him, and _aches._

 

He thinks about Bennett lighting candles on long nights, how gentle he could be when it mattered, how he let Marcus feed off his attention because he knew he needed it. He missed that, missed knowing someone so completely that he didn't have to lie awake wondering what they might be feeling. He wished,  _desperately_ wished, that he could just stay here with someone who didn't expect anything from him, someone he understands and who understands him. But instead, he’s going back to America, to get his heart broken in half like the sodding Eucharist.

 

He shakes his head. "I've made a right mess, haven't I?"

 

"Yes." Bennett says bluntly, more like his regular self. Then he touches Marcus' hand, softly, just once. "Now go and clean it up."

 

>>

 

Outside, the light is so golden that Marcus almost stays.

 

But then he’s handing his passport over to the stewardess, and the Chicago skies are grey and dreary above his head, and he's home.

 


	3. iii. you are a fever i am learning to live with

**iii. you are a fever i am learning to live with**

 

For the first few days, Tomas was angry. 

 

At Marcus, for leaving. At himself, for not going after him. 

 

He all but glowered at people on the streets, jogged six minute miles and rehearsed what he would say to Marcus when he got back. After he punched him in the face, of course. 

 

But Marcus hadn’t come back, and Tomas’ anger had become a carbon monoxide leak, filling his house, his lungs, his life--until he couldn’t breathe. 

 

>>

 

After the attempted assassination, Tomas rebuilt the church. 

 

He had new parishioners and new sponsors and new purpose in the pulpit. He liked writing sermons and pressing communion into the hands of the abuelas _;_ he liked the ordinary crimes of confession and the absence of satanic beings from his altar. 

 

The fading fame St. Anthony’s had acquired kept the pews full and the coffers brimming. Everything was good. He should be content.

 

Which didn’t explain why he still hoped to see Marcus slouching in the doorway every time he started mass, or why their last argument still shouldered its way through his thoughts, or why coming home no longer felt like a reprieve, with the gaping hallways and drowning shadows. 

 

>>

 

“So he just _left?_ ” Casey’s expression pixelates in and out, courtesy of the rectory’s abysmal WiFi, but her shock isn’t lost in transmission. 

 

“Yes.” Tomas rubs his eyes. He’s so tired. Tired of worrying if Marcus was dead in a gutter somewhere, tired of gathering the pieces of his pride Marcus had scattered on the ground. And most of all, tired of waiting for Marcus to come home.

 

>>

 

**From:** devon.bennett@pccs.va

**To:** tortega@gmail.com

 

_Found something of yours. Thought you should know._

 

The message was so vague that Tomas wasn’t sure how to react--but Bennett's tone seemed that of “aggrieved neighbor finds hole-digging puppy in his yard” more than anything else.

 

Tomas still could have broken the screen in frustration. No details. Just that Marcus was alive and presumably with Bennett in the Vatican.

 

He sighed, dropping his face into his hands. It would have to be enough. 

  

>>

 

After four weeks of solitary meals and suffocating silences, Tomas understood.

 

Life as a priest still suited him, but life without Marcus no longer did.

 

>>

 

His thumb hovered over the call button. 

 

He had tried to envision the conversation so many times. Maybe Marcus would call him an ingrate or maybe Tomas would call him a coward. Marcus might apologize, Tomas might reject it. They would yell, or they wouldn't. They would make it easy, or they wouldn't. Tomas couldn't decide which version he preferred.

 

But every version ended with Marcus coming home.

 

>>

 

_You couldn’t do this without me_. 

 

The words rattled tirelessly in his head. They were a little true. Tomas wouldn’t know about demons at all if it hadn’t been for Marcus. He could accept that. What truly hurt him was that they were words he had heard before: Captain Howdy’s twisted version of Marcus, speaking all his worst fears, telling him he wasn’t good enough. But that had been the demon. Hearing them from this Marcus, _his_ Marcus, had been unbearable.

 

But Tomas knew that after saving Casey, and Angela, and all the ones after, he had proven himself as an exorcist--they both knew it. 

 

He _could_ do this without Marcus. It was just that he didn’t want to. 

 

>>

 

Olivia called and invited him for dinner, and Tomas hastily accepted.

 

She made _tampiqueña_ the way their abuela used to, and he helped Luis with his homework. They sit and say grace and it’s nice--but the more they talk, the more he realizes Olivia’s circling around something, moving her food across her plate, looking at him like she’s trying to read his mind.

 

When Luis trudges off to bed, she folds her hands and eyes him squarely. 

 

"Okay, what happened?" 

 

His stomach drops. "What?"

 

"Marcus." He starts to protest but she cuts him off. "I haven't heard from him in weeks. _Or you._ And when I do seen you, you look miserable." He opened his mouth to protest but she waved a hand. 

 

"Don't lie to me, I know when my own brother's heartbroken." He opened his mouth but no words came out. And then, “Come on, Tomas.” And _then_ , “The only time I've ever seen you like this was after Jessica.”

 

Tomas feltlike all the air had been vacuumed from his lungs. 

 

_> >_

 

_Heartbroken_. Is that what he was? 

 

He thinks of Marcus the priest: sardonic, stubborn, always smiling like there's a knife between his teeth. 

 

He thinks of Marcus his friend: charcoal-smudged, tea-stained, his laugh, the shape of his hands. 

 

He thinks of how Marcus looks at him, how he sees him like no one has ever seen him. Not prodigal, not perfect--just a person.

 

He lies awake, trying to puzzle it out, trying to solve the algorithms of his own body and see if they added up to something substantial, more than just curiosity, or flattery, or friendship. 

 

He finds no answers, and in his dreams, the memory of Marcus continues reaching for him.

 

But more and more, Tomas finds himself reaching back. 

 


	4. iv. and everything is happening

**iv. and everything is happening  
  
**_“Five 'Hail Marys' and ten 'Our Fathers', go in peace my child._ ”

 

The woman slid out of the booth with a whispered, _“Thank you, Father.”_

 

The next confessor slides into the booth. When he speaks, Tomas already knows his voice. 

 

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It’s been two months since my last confession—"

 

Tomas wrenches open the door, pulls Marcus out by the shoulder. He knows he’s pushing too hard and the sharp edge of the booth is digging into Marcus’ back, but he doesn’t care. 

 

Marcus just grins, he can't help it. He's so, so happy to see him. 

 

“I’d like to confess that I’ve been an _arse,_ Father.” 

 

_“And?”_ Tomas grits out.

 

“And I’d quite like to come home."

 

>>

 

So they go home. 

 

They go home and Marcus wanders around touching the walls and books and chairs, like he’s relearning everything with his hands. 

 

Tomas wonders how it would feel to be touched like that. 

 

As soon as this thought enters his head it diffuses throughout his entire body, like warm water, his skin flushing traitorously.

 

_Where did you go?_ he wants to ask, but his body still feels like the negative space that exists around Marcus’ hands. _Why did you come back?_

 

>>

 

That night, Marcus tries to explain.

 

"I," he starts.

 

Tomas kisses him.

 

>>

 

Tomas kisses him and Marcus almost checks him for possession, almost pushes him away in surprise, almost has a heart attack. 

 

Tomas kisses him, and Marcus’ entire body is a thunderstorm, and Tomas just keeps kissing him like lightning.

 

>>

 

That night, he presses Tomas into the mattress, and apologizes for leaving with his hands, his lips, his tongue.

 

He pulls away every offending piece of clothing between them, and says it into Tomas' skin.

 

"God, I've missed you," Marcus says, right into the palm of his hand. Tomas rises to meet him, strokes the side of his face. 

 

"I know," he says. 

 

It feels like absolution. 

 

>>

 

And just like that, they resume.

 

Tomas stands at the front of the church and Marcus sits in the back; Marcus writes in his Bible, Tomas reads out of his. 

 

Marcus keeps an eye on the giggling children in the back rows, sweet talks the ladies, winks at their husbands, chats with Mrs. Finnley and _hates_ Tara’s boyfriend. Tomas watches it all with amusement as he shakes hands and bids farewells at the end of mass.

 

And once the church door is shut, Tomas presses him up against it.

 

>>

 

Angela hands him a flower bulb, some kind of orange perennial lily. 

 

“He looks happy,” Angela says, indicating Marcus with a tilt of her head. “You both do.” 

 

“Yes,” he agrees. It’s strange--and wonderful--to find that it’s true.

 

Ever since Marcus came into it, his life has been stranger and wilder, more blessed, more cursed. Tomas looks over at him, sitting with Henry and the girls. Casey is leaning against his legs and Kat is laughing at something he said, and Tomas loves him, loves him, loves him. 

 

He smiles, long and warm.

 

In a few weeks when the lilies bloom, Angela will remember that.

 

>>

 

Sometimes they hunt and sometimes they don't. 

 

They're a team, and their reputation ranges from nonexistent to mythic, depending on who they talk to. 

 

In some ways, it’s harder now; demons favor hallucination and impersonation. _To think I would ever love a pathetic thing like you_ , demon-Tomas says, _I should never have come back_ , demon-Marcus growls. Some days it shakes them. Some days they feel so far from God’s grace it’s like drowning in their own doubt.

 

But after, always after, Marcus will touch the palm of Tomas’ hand, or Tomas will lean into Marcus’ shoulder, and it passes. 

 

>>

 

They take turns being the one in the hospital bed. 

 

When it's Marcus, Tomas bursts with energy. Worry turns him into a pacer, an excessive coffee drinker, and of course, a penitent. He's sociable with the other patients in the room, learns the nurses' names and has them explain all the medical terms to him twice.

 

When it's Tomas, Marcus turns inwards. He hardly speaks, hardly sleeps, hardly knows what to do with himself. He avoids the hospital during the day, but he is there all night, every night. His prayers are short, and threatening.

 

>>

 

The phone rings. 

 

Marcus eyes the caller ID and grins when he picks up. “Miss me?” he purrs.

 

_“Not for a single second.”_ Bennett replies, biting, bored, and beloved. 

 

>>

 

Their lives become a series of movements.

 

Tomas pushing him down, Marcus arching up. Tomas holding the Bible aloft, Marcus chanting its holy words. Tomas making coffee, Marcus drinking all of it. Tomas going for morning runs, Marcus sleeping till noon. 

 

Like everyone else, their lives are a sine curve of good and bad.

 

They still fight, often, and about everything.

 

Love, for both of them, has never been an easy thing to hold onto, but slowly they learn how to use the sharp edge of it: self-defense instead of self-destruct.

 

>>

 

_You felt God in your hands?_

 

Marcus rolls them over, a thigh on either side of him. He takes in the man beneath him, runs his thumb along Tomas’ bottom lip, reverent.

 

_You felt God in your hands?_

 

Marcus' fingers stroke down Tomas' arms, his face, his chest.

 

_Yes,_ he thinks. 

 

>>

 

The cold is bone-deep in Minsk.

 

Marcus complains endlessly about it while Tomas admires the architecture. They sip coffee and walk hand-in-hand through the dusky streets.

 

Father Mikhail lets them in through the back door of St. Rochus, peering anxiously into the night, as if adversaries might be prowling the parking lot. He’s not exactly wrong.

 

Marcus lets Tomas take the lead, a hand steady on his shoulder as the holy words spill from his mouth.

 

The demon lunges forward, and Marcus involuntarily grips Tomas a little tighter, his thumb sliding along the back of his neck. Tomas just closes his eyes, holds the Bible over his heart, and splits the demon from its host with a final, incendiary _amen_.

 

>>

 

They keep surviving. 


End file.
